An Eyewitness Details the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

On June 5, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy won California’s Democratic primary in his bid to become President of the United States. That night, after his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Kennedy was shot in the head and neck in what turned out to be a successful assassination attempt. He died the following day.

In a famous photograph taken seconds after he was shot, Kennedy lies on the floor. A teenaged hotel busboy kneels beside him, cradling the Senator’s head. That busboy was Juan Romero, who came to the United States from Mexico as a child.

At StoryCorps, Romero remembered the night of the assassination — and how he met Senator Kennedy the day before, when Romero helped deliver his room service.

Top photo: Juan Romero at home in California holding a photo of himself and Senator Robert F. Kennedy that was taken the night Kennedy was assassinated. The photo he holds was taken by Boris Yaro of the Los Angeles Times.

Bottom photo: Hotel busboy Juan Romero cradling Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s head after Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California on June 5, 1968. Photo by Bill Eppridge/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images.

Originally aired June 1, 2018, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Frank Scott and Warrick Scott

Wendell Scott (left) became the first African American driver to be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame on January 30, 2015. Scott started racing in 1952 toward the end of the Jim Crow era, and was the first African American to win at NASCAR’s elite major league level.

Scott’s family served as his racing team. They traveled to speedways together from their home in Danville, Virginia, and his sons worked as his pit crew.

Wendell Scott died in 1990. One of his sons, Frank (above left), and his grandson Warrick (above right), sat down to remember him for StoryCorps. Watch “Driven,” Wendell’s story as a StoryCorps animated short.

Originally aired January 30, 2015 and February 3, 2023 on NPR’s Morning Edition.

This broadcast is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Photo courtesy of the Wendell Scott Foundation.

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Karama Neal and Judge Olly Neal

Judge Olly Neal grew up in Arkansas during the ’50s and didn’t care much for high school. One day he cut class and wandered into the library. It’s there he came across a book by African-American author Frank Yerby. The provocative cover piqued his interest, but Olly had a rough-and-tumble reputation to uphold. So rather than check out the book and have his classmates see he was voluntarily reading, he stole it.

He came to StoryCorps to tell his daughter Karama Neal about what happened next.

Check out Judge Olly Neal’s story as a StoryCorps animated short, “The Treasures of Mrs. Grady’s Library.”

Originally aired on October 2, 2009, on NPR’s Morning Edition. A rebroadcast aired on September 27, 2019 on the same program.